


Alien

by Fenix21



Series: The Long Good Bye [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam getting bullied, Sam has a brush with his inner darkness, Young Sam Winchester, no Sam is NOT an alien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 02:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has always felt out of place. Maybe the kids are right. Maybe he is a freak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alien

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by John Paul White's 'Alien' from his album _The Long Goodbye_.  
>  Song and lyrics can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubSxlURnUCQ>here</a>)

‘Hey, Freak!’

Sam’s shoulders rippled briefly with the suppressed urge to turn and take a swing at the owner of the voice behind him. The kid was tall and built solid, a lot like Dean, and part of the trouble Sam had with him is because he was pretty, like Dean, and he really didn’t want to damage that pretty face because as much as the constant torrent of taunts and insults and jibes annoyed the hell out of him, he still liked to look at it, imagine for a brief second when the kid’s back was turned that is was Dean walking away from him down the hallway, because Dean hadn’t enrolled in this school, or the last one, or the one before that. He’d kind of silently dropped out after he’d turned seventeen and John had let it slide, so Sam walked the halls alone now under the sharp scrutinizing gazes of his peers and teachers.

Freak.

He really wasn’t sure when it had started or how or why. He’d never done anything except try and stay caught up on his schoolwork while John jerked them from place to place from one side of the country to the other. Sure, he excelled in a lot of his subjects, and he got that the local kids would get kind of testy over the new kid in school blowing their long established and sometime purposely manipulated bell curve, but that didn’t mean he was a freak. Just smart. 

Dean called him a freak. All the time. But that was okay. Dean said it like he was saying ‘I love you’ because Dean didn’t say that, not very often. One of them was usually bleeding or unconscious when he managed to dredge up the actual words; otherwise Dean’s ‘I love you’ came in the form of teasing: calling him a freakishly big puppy because of his long limbs and huge hands and feet that he had yet to grow into, or a super clingy mutant baby monkey-octopus the way he wrapped himself around Dean day and night, anytime, anywhere, completely oblivious to personal space, or just by saying Sam’s name. Sammy.

Sam was getting testy about John using the nickname these days, especially in front of his friends, when he managed to acquire any, or the teachers or kids at school because he thought it made him sound like a little kid, but not when Dean said it. He never wanted Dean to quit saying it. It sounded perfect rolling off of Dean’s tongue even when he was using it in irritation and swearing at Sam for taking one of his t-shirts—again; and when Dean came back from a hunt, bloody and sometimes broken and sometimes even worse and Sam would sit on his knees by the bed and hold his brother’s hand while John stitched him up, then the nickname would sound like a prayer, a benediction, something sacred that Dean could hold onto, the only thing in the world he could believe in, the only thing in which he had faith.

‘Hey, Freak-boy! I’m talkin’ to you!’

They were a few feet from the front doors of the school. The final bell had run five minutes ago and the crowd was a surging tide trying to get out to the buses. He could just get lost in the crush. Should just get lost in the crush.

His brain flashed, for the briefest of seconds, to the silver knife and the small Beretta 3032 loaded with rounds of iron and silver that he had in the hidden compartment at the bottom of his bag because Dean wouldn’t let him go anywhere without protection especially when he was no longer a few hallways or a school campus’ worth of grass away to be able to call if Sam got into trouble.

Sam shook his head and scowled. Those weapons were for monsters, not humans. He should never think of using them on the school bully, and it frightened him a little that he did. But he was so tired of the name calling and the books getting knocked out of his arms and his lunch being stolen and his locker being rigged with all kinds of not so amusing practical jokes; and it made him all the more angry because he didn’t need to put up with it. He was trained on how to put down a banshee, he could plug a Werewolf’s heart full of silver at fifty feet, and bulls-eye the sweet spot at the top of a Veramir’s spine with an iron blade at a hundred. He could also put Dean on his back seven times out of ten these days when they sparred together, so there was no reason he couldn’t take on the school bully. 

Except he was afraid. 

Sam was afraid of the awful rage that was boiling in his guts. It had been there for a while, getting stronger and stronger over the months, and sometimes he felt like it was all just going to explode out of him without warning. Sometimes it did, a little. When John came around and uprooted them in the middle of the night with no warning, and Dean would take him out back of whatever crap motel they were crashing in the next day to work some of the vinegar out of his little brother. It would leak out, and Sam knew that Dean could see it, feel it in the sharper punches, the more vicious kicks, the way Sam would look wild and uncontrolled for just a second when he was straddling Dean's chest in the dirt with his hands locked around his throat. For those few brief seconds Sam was out of control, and when he slid back down the adrenaline high rushing in his blood and saw Dean's bright green eyes looking back at him, questioning, doubting, just the tiniest little bit, he was afraid. So very afraid. 

Sam made it to the steps before the heavy hand landed on his shoulder. 

'Hey, Freak, don't you walk away when I'm talkin' to you.'

Stupid. So stupid. 

Sam grabbed the kid's hand, thumb digging deep into the pressure point in the heel of it, spun around, twisting the guy's arm over and up. He could have flipped him, could have had him on his back in less time than it took him to blink, but that would be bad, very bad. That would draw attention. Attention he didn't need, that Dean had told him to avoid, taught him to avoid. He settled for holding the kid captive in his one handed grip, watching him squirm angrily like a worm on a hook. He pressed up into the bully's space, somehow seeming so much taller than he actually was, not lacking the four inches it would take to be looking the guy square in the eye. 

'Hey, let go. Freak!'

Sam pushed in, twisted harder. The kid looked into his face, angry, embarrassed, and scowling for all he was worth, and suddenly froze. 

'I. Am. Not. A. Freak,' Sam said slowly, biting down on every word and spitting it back in the bully's face. 

The kid's eyes went wide, his face drained of color, and for just a second Sam thought the guy might throw up on his shoes right there on the school steps. Sam dropped his hand and the kid stumbled back, still pale, eyes narrowing just a bit, but still very afraid. Afraid of Sam. He clutched his tingling hand and tried to rub the blood back into it, scowling at Sam all the while as he sidestepped to the far railing and nearly ran down the steps. At the bottom, when he was far enough away with enough of a crowd to keep Sam from catching up to him, he spun around and yelled,

'Freak!'

Sam stood on the steps, the crush of students breaking around him like water around a rock in the river, his chest heaving, cold sweat prickling up and creeping down his spine, feeling very much like he was going to be sick himself. The hold he'd used was one Dean had taught him when he was six. It was a common move, one of the most effective when someone was dumb enough to actually try and grab a person from behind, but it wasn’t the pain that had the kid scared. No. It wasn't until Sam had gotten in his face and given him a good long look at his eyes that the kid went pale like he'd seen the ghost of his dear departed grandma. 

Sam wrapped his arms around his ribs and scrambled down the steps ignoring the irritated huffs of the students whose shoulders he jostled or book bags he dislodged. He had no bus to catch. John and Dean were off on a hunt, not due back until late tonight or tomorrow morning. Pastor Jim would pick him up when he was done at the soup kitchen for the afternoon, usually around four o'clock. Sam would sit and read or work on homework until then, but today he didn't know if he would be able to concentrate on it. 

He found his usual spot on the stone wall that skirted the front of the school and gave himself a boost up. The buses were already pulling out, taking the majority of the students with them, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts and the memory of the bully's blanched face and wide, frightened eyes. Sam's hands shook when he tried to unzip his bag and pull out _The Once and Future King_ that he had three chapters due in for his AP English class tomorrow. He fumbled it twice and finally gave up, fisted his fingers tight in the worn, threadbare nylon material and just clutched the bag close to his chest. 

What was wrong with him? Why was that kid so afraid? Why was he so angry all the time, and why did it feel so much like he had just done something very, very wrong?

Maybe the bully was right. Maybe he really was a freak. 

A familiar deep rumble brought Sam's head up. 

The few students who remained were letting out low whistles of appreciation and all eyes were following the sleek black shining body of the '67 Impala that was rounding the corner and pulling up the school drive. 

Sam squinted hard against the glare of the sun on the windshield. There was only one person in the car. 

Dean. 

'Heya, geek-boy! You ready to go?' Dean called as he stepped out of the idling car, grinning from ear to ear at having successfully surprised his little brother with his unexpected arrival, one foot still inside, elbow propped jaunty and casual on the roof. 

Sam's heart leaped into his throat. He dropped off the stone wall and careened toward the car, not even taking the time to run around the front of it, just vaulting over the hood and sliding across on his hip to land in front of Dean's door. 

'What the hell, Sammy! You scratch up the hood with a move like that, and I swear I'll—.’

Dean got the air knocked out of him as five foot seven inches of quivering baby brother catapulted them both against the side of the car. Sam's arms threaded around him so tight, Dean could barely breathe.

‘Jesus, Sam.’ Dean instinctively wrapped his arms around his little brother’s shoulders, pulling him in tight and pushing a warm hand up into the shaggy hair at the back of his head, tucking his face close in to his chest. ‘Sam…Sammy?’

Dean tipped Sam’s face up, or tried to. Sam pulled his chin from his brother’s calloused fingers and buried his nose deeper into the sun warmed leather of his coat and breathed deep and unsteady. Dean thumbed his jaw, his cheek, cradled his face with his broad palm, not trying to force him to look up anymore.

‘Sam, come on, talk to me? Did something happen? Are you okay?’

Sam couldn’t stand the worry in his brother’s voice, didn’t want anyone else to be afraid because of him today, for any reason. 

‘’M fine,’ he mumbled. ‘Just…missed you ‘s all.

‘I missed you, too, kiddo,’ Dean said cautiously, and Sam could hear the ‘but’ at the end of it.

He pushed deeper into Dean’s embrace, holding his brother for all he was worth. He smeared his face against the soft, worn flannel of his shirt, wiping away the tears that had begun to leak past his lashes.

‘What’s wrong with me, Dean?’

Sam could feel Dean’s surprise in the shift of his weight and the sudden tension in his spine as he straightened slightly.

‘Wrong with you? Nothin’s wrong with you, little brother.’

‘They all call me a freak.’

‘Who calls you a freak?’ Dean asked, voice tight, but hands still ever so gentle as they scratched lightly through Sam’s hair.

‘The kids,’ Sam sniffed and pushed subtly closer into Dean’s hand. ‘They’re scared of me, Dean, and I-I don’t know why.’

Dean chuckled, low and breathy. ‘Hell, I’d be scared of you, too, if I were them. After seeing you knife that Marmagothe last month? Damn, Sammy, that was somethin’ else.’

‘But they don’t know any of that stuff, Dean, and I’m careful, just like you said to be, and I don’t pick fights like Dad told us not to, and…’ 

He drifted off, swallowed back against a full blown sob because, really, none of this warranted him being so upset, and he _knew_ that; but it just felt so good to have Dean’s arms around him and know that he was safe, that no matter how angry he ever got, Dean was never going to look at him like the other kids did, never treat him like there was something just not quite right about him. Dean was always going to be there to tell him everything was okay, and as far as Dean was concerned the rest of the world could go to hell because Sammy was _his_ brother and no one was going to be calling him a freak, for any reason.

‘Shh, shh, Sammy…’ Dean arms tightened a little. ‘So, who do I have to beat the shit out of for calling my baby brother a ‘freak,’ huh?’

Sam huffed a laugh against Dean’s chest, felt the answering rumble of Dean’s low laugh, and leaned back a little, tilting his head up.

‘Nobody. I took care of him.’

Dean’s eyes flashed and for just one second Sam’s heart stopped at the glint of something—something that looked so, so much like fear—deep down and hidden, before he blinked and it was gone and Dean’s hand was ruffling his hair while he smiled down at his baby brother, eyes clear and bright and green like they should be. Like they should always be.

‘Well, then I guess you don’t need me around anymore,’ Dean said playfully.

Sam grabbed at him hard, face screwing up in a hard scowl. 

‘Always need you,’ he whispered fiercely.

Dean laughed outright and dropped a quick kiss to the top of Sam’s head that had him smiling again and nuzzling into his brother’s chest one last time before he pulled away reluctantly and rounded the car to slide into the front passenger seat.

Dean dropped into the driver’s seat, paused, hand on the gear shift, and turned to Sam.

‘Seriously, though, little brother. There is _nothing_ wrong with you and anybody who says so is full of shit and is going to have to deal with me. Got it?’

Sam nodded solemnly from across the car. Dean kept looking at him for one intense second and then nodded once as if to himself and put the Impala in gear and pulled away from the school. 

The drive to Jim’s church only took fifteen minutes—ten the way Dean drove—but before the school was fully out of view behind them, Sam was scooted across the seat and pushed up under his brother’s arm and curled contentedly against his side because he would take every minute he could get and because, despite his brother’s assurances, the unsettling image continued to linger of the bully’s wide terrified eyes reflecting back something dark and black and dangerous in Sam’s own.

 


End file.
